Postcards from Venice...

On my last trip to Venice, I wanted to find the Libreria Acqua Alta touted as "the most beautiful bookshop in the world".

I have a penchant for jumbled, chaotic bookshops that have stacks of books with a few stray cats roaming the aisles.....throwing a gondola in the middle of the room was just icing on the cake!

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I picked an overcast day to find the shop. Located in the Castello sestiere, I wound through tiny calles , some so small that as the rain started, my umbrella scraped both sides of the stone walls.

And then I found it! The tables outside were covered with plastic due to the rain and the cats took refuge inside...a soft rain was falling....perfect book browsing weather!

Luigi Frizzo, owner of the shop, was very kind as he allowed me to dig freely in the two rooms of books. I found a rare book that caught my eye, some art prints and then I found the boxes of postcards!

I was fascinated. I bought way too many, but the artwork and writing on the back was intriguing.

The ones I bought had postmarks from 1910 -1925. They represented people just like me who traveled to Venice to see the same buildings I was seeing. Not much has changed in Venice for hundreds of years.

The postcards will be used for reference when I am painting. Some are photos and some are lovely artist's illustrations of gondolas and other iconic images of Venice.

What things do you gather on your journeys? If ever in Venice, I highly recommend visiting the Acqua Alta bookshop....the most beautiful bookshop in the world!